Personal Work

I create and release my own music under the pseudonym 'xaxtl.' This is my "stage name." I've put that in quotation marks because I'm not someone who is trying to make it big as an artist in the music industry; I just have deep passion for creativity. Along with a Spotify page, I'm growing my audience through other means as well, such as Instagram and Reels. I also put music out with my friend 'Nastrokid'. I produce all his music and explain in more detail down below.

I believe my various creative outlets strongly demonstrate my creative direction. I'm always experimenting with new things, and writing ideas down in my notes to one day put into action.

AI Song Reimagining Project

With the invention of AI, I've never had more creative freedom in my life when it comes to musical creation. A project that I'm working on now and am starting to release officially is my AI song reimagining project. Essentially, I am reimagining old songs with new vocals and productions. A song I did this too and that I'm very proud of is 'Snooze' by SZA, AI performed by Rihanna and Chris Brown. I turned the pop song into a deep and dark slow melodic and atmospheric journey.

Here is the process:

Extract the vocals from "Snooze," put the a cappella file through an AI voice converter, and then essentially recreate the song in Logic Pro, with new instrumentation and processing.

The other songs that I am making and haven't released are:

Sarah McLachlan's 'When She Loved Me - Performed by Taylor Swift and Harry Styles

Harry Styles 'Sign of the Times' - Performed by Taylor Swift

SZA's 'Saturn' - Performed by Justin Bieber

Admittedly, uploading these songs to Spotify is definitely against the rules and it baffles me that they were cleared for release, but if they are taken down, I also post my songs to Soundcloud and Youtube.

Digital Artwork

Whether it's posting to my Instagram or in conjunction with musical releases, digital artwork is something I also spend a lot of time on. I primarily use Photoshop, Lightroom, and Snapseed. Below are some of my best works.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

'Khaled Rohaim' EP

'Khaled Rohaim' is an EP that I executive produced and was a creative director for. 'Nastrokid', the artist, is a friend of mine. This project was made to showcase his talents in a modern and unique way.

Here is a list of the responsibilities I took on for the project.

- Mix and mastered the EP

- Produced instrumental 4/6 songs

- Designed the artwork

- Submitted the songs to streaming services

- Run ads and monitor their engagement across multiple platforms

- Contacted radio stations and relevant people in the industry

- Designed all promotional material

- Designed the Spotify Canvas (vertical video)

- Sent emails to grow audience

A part of my creative directorship of the project, was coming up with the idea of naming the album after the Australian Grammy nominated musical producer Khaled Rohaim in the hopes that he would notice Nastrokid.

Whilst we never got that recognition from him, we were lucky enough to get radio play on 2RRR on two occasions.

You can view some of the files I've discussed here in this Google Drive.

Instagram

I'm starting to make a more professional move to Instagram for marketing my 'xaxtl' releases. I'm focusing on creating a post for every song that comes out.

In a uniform approach, each post will feature the following:

- Album art
- Short visual of the track's key point
- Screenshot of the Logic Pro session file
- Alternate cover

I'm also posting Reels of the entire song and editing short visualisers in Final Cut Pro. I will soon start posting these to TikTok as well.

Instagram is the best way I can showcase my visual content and I am striving to make this more of a reality day by day.

https://www.instagram.com/xaxtl/

Song Second
Life Project

As a music lover, I've immersed myself in so much music that I've often found myself listening to unreleased songs. Unfortunately, there are some unreleased songs that are really good and deserve to be heard. This 'Second Life' project was inspired by exactly this idea: to take a song that's unreleased, reimagine it, and release it.

So far, I've reimagined two songs, with multiple more still in production.

My thought process when making these was to bring them into my style, which is very evident in just one listen. The Drake and Billie Eilish song, originally a thumping loud track, has been transformed into this beautiful, mellow piece of art.

The artwork for this project is meant to juxtapose the themes of the music. While the songs are slow, calm, and soothing, the album art is quite jarring and creepy.

Similarly, the same can be said for the unreleased music of my mentor, 'Nastrokid.' Getting a hold of his music and remaking the songs with a whole new vibe gives them a second life.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

Videography

I've made many videos over my teenage years; here are a few of my favourite.

The Bullying video was an assignment back in high school, which ended up turning into something my friend Tyler and I created for a bit of fun to pass the time.

The July 7 video was a short film I made for media class during COVID. I was very proud of it because I had to overcome the challenge of not being able to leave the house to film footage. So, I recycled old videos and presented them in a very unique way.